After Robert’s first week as a store manager, we  had our first days off together in a month. We spent most of Saturday like this:

We are fortunate to live within driving distance of this amazing beach (there is actually another drive-on beach a bit south of us, but we’ve never gone to that one). We took a cooler and the menu included iced coffee, Gatorade, potato chips, hummus, watermelon, and sandwiches. We may have also made $20 when the tide started coming in and Red (that’s the CJ-7) pulled out a stuck Suburban (or was it an Expedition? neither of us can remember) and a Grand Prix.

That night we had dinner at a local brewery with a friend from college and her husband. They just moved to our city, which is exciting! (Now we just have to convince them to buy a house in our area…)

totally tweeted this pic to Home Depot & Ryobi

Sunday, before an early Mother’s Day dinner with Robert’s family, we built an ottoman. As you can see, I haven’t picked up the Nikon to take photos since our guest post (it’s been almost a month, oops).

I also need to tell y’all about our globe pendant, which we finally hung over the table in the living room. And as it turns out, I need to mention our decision to (most likely) swap this table out for a nearly identical table (which we will paint yellow) and more modern chairs. That is sort of up in the air, if everything goes as planned we will give the current set to a family member for their new house.

Did I mention that we also painted a chalkboard wall in the kitchen? You can sort of see it in this photo from the guest post:

And as for the bathroom, we’ve now had it decommissioned for a full year. Time to get that sucker back up and running. Remember this photo dump, where I mentioned we were going with a Kohler valve? I have since scoured the internet for valves and we ordered this one from Period Bath (row 15, column d):

photo from Period Bath

If you follow me on Twitter you know that the escutcheon totally shattered in the mail, but the valve seems to be in pretty good condition. We’re planning to have it rebuilt by a local plumber (unless I get annoyed with him and find the seats and washers cheaper online). That’s right, I support the local shops until they tick me off, and then I just find what I want online. Fortunately one of the plumbers we talked to told Robert that I’m a keeper because I’m stubborn and get things done on my own.

So that’s what we’ve been up to lately.

A big welcome to anyone who is here for the first time! Thanks so much for stopping by! We love new readers!

dry fitting the tub & drain pipe

half the subfloor is in

very blurry/blown out toilet drain & bracing rough in

Robert claims this wasn’t posed

the top of the pedestal is a tad narrow, but we think it’s going to work

Kohler 304k valve & escutcheon (also seen here) from Period Bath with… trim doohickey

box of assorted plumbing goodness

And on that note, I’m about to kick off a four day weekend! One that is hopefully filled with a lot of work on the bathroom, and not too much rain.

For the record, I’m kind of wishing I had trusted my gut on this one way back in May of last year. (Yes, we are officially nearing the one year mark of this reno. But we are doing a lot of work, and we’re doing it all ourselves. Read as: Don’t start with me, I will cut you.) Thank goodness we have two bathrooms.

I was so young and innocent when we started this long journey I call the Guest Bath Redux. Ahh, to be 24 again… (but I didn’t look a day over 23, I swear.)  Anyway , when I asked the sales guy about the sink I was interested in he told me it was wall-hung. Being that I was new to sink-buying, and there weren’t any pedestals in sight, I believed him. Plus the sink was $20. At that time, for that price I could only have gotten a smaller, used sink from our local ReStore.

Stop me if you know where this is going.

toilet and sink purchases from a local home renovation outlet

$20 sinks at our local ReStore

Last night Robert and I unboxed the toilet I bought from the home reno outlet to see if it was a 12″ rough-in. While we were at it I suggested we slide the tub out of the way and unbox the sink, just to see how it looked in the space size-wise. I had a teeny, tiny feeling that something was wrong with that glorious $20 sink, and I wanted to check it out without saying anything.

Sad trombone.

We pretty much knew the outcome when Robert picked the box up. That sucker was HEAVY. When we pulled it out of the box we realized it was the basin for a pedestal sink.

Cue me getting all panicky.

Our $20 sink basin is by St Thomas Creations, and appears to be the Sonata line. I’m fairly certain it’s discontinued, which probably explains why the outlet didn’t have a pedestal. Fortunately, after a little bit of strolling around Lowe’s & Home Depot (what, is that weird?) and some iPhone researching, I started to calm down. And then I clicked “add to cart” on this little guy (pedestal only):

image from FaucetDirect

Whew.

Well, almost whew. I’ll still be nervous until it arrives (hopefully in one piece) and we test to make sure it fits with the basin. Since the matching basin is $181.80, and there is no way to check cross compatibility online (Googling “St Thomas Creation Sonoma” brought up…. nothing).

Oh also, now I’m panicking thinking that my faucet isn’t going to work with the basin. I need to test that tonight, because I’m suddenly having flashbacks to a post by my girl Erin at The Stucco Bungalow.

If it doesn’t fit you’ll find me curled up in the fetal position on the half of the subfloor that is installed.

Anyone else have a story of how something you bought wasn’t quite what you thought it was?

Edit: The faucet fits! And if I’d read the sticker correctly back last May I’d have known it was a pedestal. Oh well, I think it’s going to work out.

As promised, I’m back with some details about our fridge purchase. And a long back story about how we picked our other appliances. Cue what is probably my longest post to date.

I know that people have their own opinions and convictions about appliances (as with everything, really). So please don’t take this as the end-all be-all. I’m not judging anyone’s appliance preferences, I’m just explaining my thought process on why we bought what we bought. Everyone has different needs/wants when it comes to things like this. For another view on the subject: here is Katie Bower’s view on buying a fridge. And feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments!

I’ll start by saying this: the rest of the appliances in our kitchen are KitchenAid. It started back before we bought our house, when I was researching stoves for my grandparents’ house. Or maybe it started with all the cooking shows I watched on Bravo. (What show is that that refers to their kitchen as the KitchenAid Kitchen? Or is it the Whirlpool Gold Kitchen?) Or with my love for our KitchenAid stand mixer. Regardless, I was researching ranges and found a good price on a KitchenAid Architect Series II electric range (basically the old version of this one, except ours is four burner with a warming zone) at the Sears Outlet. I’m not sure why I was drawn to KitchenAid, possibly I just liked the look, trusted the name, and the price was right.

When we bought our house, my parents very graciously gifted the new KitchenAid range to us. We love it. As in, Robert lovingly cleans buffs the cooktop at least once a day, and we nearly cried when it got a teeny, tiny, not-noticeable-to-anyone-but-us scratch in the surface. My mom is basically the same way about her granite counters, so I don’t feel that bad admitting it. “Bill, there are water spots! Here, I’ll do it.” (Love you, Mom!)

Around the same time I was jumping for joy over our purchase of our Whirlpool Duet Sport washer & dryer (love them, too; also from Sears Outlet, we spent about $800 for the pair), we decided to replace the Hotpoint dishwasher that came with the house. Although I am brandist loyal neurotic, I did not initially set out to buy another KitchenAid. Yes, I wanted the handles to match (see, told you I’m neurotic!), and it would be nice if they were the same brand, but I was initially swayed by the price of a Frigidaire dishwasher (I think it was this one). Then I started doing my research. After reading one too many “my dishwasher caught on fire!” reviews, I decided I didn’t feel comfortable going with Frigidaire. For anything. Ever. Justincase. I continued researching, and after finding out that Frigidaire is under the Electrolux umbrella I decided to just rule out the entire Electrolux family of appliances, just for my own peace of mind.

Then I started thinking about our range, and our Whirlpool washer & dryer. I learned that KitchenAid and Whirlpool are both part of the Whirlpool Corporation. Major brands include: Whirlpool,  KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Maytag, Magic Chef, Amana, Hotpoint, and Roper. Whirlpool also makes most of the appliances sold at Ikea, and Hobart sanitizers and other commercial kitchen equipment. While I don’t have experience with all the brands under the Whirlpool umbrella (there are more if you follow the link above, and more info here), most of the brands listed are ones I know and trust, whereas the brands under the Electrolux umbrella are not.

Once we decided to go with something from the Whirlpool Corp, I started narrowing things down by features. I knew we wanted stainless, preferably with the controls on top for the cleaner look, and I wanted a stainless tub. The old KitchenAid dishwasher we used at a previous house had a stainless interior, and the interior of the Hobart I used at Starbucks was stainless as well. They keep the water hotter, and it’s a lot quieter. I know from our Hotpoint, and past experience with my parents old dishwasher (which I think was a 90s KitchenAid), the plastic tub design is really noisy! So with those things in mind, we went back to my BFF of appliances, Sears Outlet. Low and behold, we found a KitchenAid dishwasher (similar to this one) for the price of the Frigidaire we saw at Lowe’s. It had two very small dents on either side of the handle, but was otherwise completely fine. As I told a coworker recently “You can only see the dents if you stand 8 feet away and cock you head to the side. And our kitchen is only 5 feet wide. So you can’t tell”.

After that purchase, we were pretty certain that we were going to end up with a KitchenAid fridge too, but we kept our options open and looked into the Whirlpool Gold line. In the meantime, my parents were redoing their kitchen (it looks fantastic, by the way, and I need to post about it!) and after my mom did her own research they went with all KitchenAid appliances from a local appliance store. They have been very happy with everything, too. You guys, my mom is such a trendsetter.  (No really, we have matching purses and everything.) Also, she said Nate Berkus likes the same line of appliances. Sold.

Also, I was pretty confident that finishing out our appliances with KitchenAid was the way to go, because I come by my obsessive researching honestly. (Hi, Mom!)

So, long story long, after all of the overtime I racked up recently, we were able to buy our new fridge! We went with the Standard-Depth French Door 24.8 cu. ft. 35 5/8″ Width Architect Series II fridge. We ordered it from the same local appliance store that my parents bought their range, dishwasher, microwave and fridge from. (And Robert set the owner up with an account to order parts for their fleet trucks through his work. Score.) Part of why we made chose this one:

• It has a water dispenser on the inside rather than on the door, and the ice maker is in the drawer instead of on the door, which is nice because it looks a lot cleaner.
• It has the silly pull out deli drawer that Robert is in love with on my parents fridge (what can I say, the man buys a lot of what he calls “sandwich makings”).
• I don’t have to squat down to see what veggies we have anymore, because the freezer is on the bottom (which is more energy efficient, too!)
• It’s not counter depth (that one is $2300), but we are eventually going to move the fridge over to where the current pantry is anyway and build a larger pantry, so we’ll just build the fridge enclosure deeper when we get there.

Total (including tax, delivery and installation): $1754

For comparison sake, the same fridge is $1899 at Lowe’s, excluding tax, delivery, and installation.

This next part is for my girl, Elisa.

I’m including this shot (above) because I am dying at the idea of a sandwich just inside the fridge like that! (Don’t get any ideas, Robert.) And a larger shot:

Except I don’t think ours has the bottle/can thingie on the door like the ones above. I’m pretty sure the door compartments are more like this one below:

I’ll be sure to include photos of it installed next week. I might even show you photos of the inside of ours. It’s like fridge porn. #thingsineverthoughtidsayontheblog

Anyone else make a large purchase recently? Or something you might be more excited about than you really should be? Come on, I’m not the only one who is over the moon about appliances, right?

Just a quick note to say, this beauty is making an appearance in a kitchen near you me soon!

I’m going to be in cooking heaven with matching appliances (we picked up a stove and dishwasher from the Sears Outlet shortly after we bought our house) and more room to store ingredients & leftovers!! And one day we may even get around to replacing the sagging cabinet doors.

I’ll be back later with more details about things like why we picked this fridge, and photos of a small project I tackled (solo!) on Sunday. (And I still owe you guest bathroom details.)

And while we’re on the subject of kitchens, who has a favorite recipe they want to share? This beef & broccoli from Rainy Day Gal is amaaaazing, and you know I love me some Peas & Crayons (seriously, everything Jenn cooks is fantastic), and lately I’ve been wanting to try a bunch of recipes from Iowa Girl Eats.

I’m feeling completely impatient with everything we have going on at the house right now.

I want the bathroom renovation to be done NOW. I want the patio we started last year to be done NOW, too. And I want the back porch to be completely transformed into a sunroom, complete with barn doors that open to the currently-unfinished patio, with chaise lounges and a fire pit/barrel. I want to lay the reclaimed hardwood that we bought at ReStore, hang the doors we picked up from ReStore & the ones we got on sale at Lowe’s, and replace the AC vents with something a little less boring. I’m tired of seeing the faucet handles I picked up for the hall bathroom sitting on the window sill, and the pendant light we DIYed laying on the floor in the living room. You don’t even want to know the state the guest bedroom is in, and the art room is not far behind.

None of this is getting done because I’ve been working almost ’round-the-clock at my day job (fortunately some of the work is from home), thanks in part March Madness, the Manning trade, and, oh yeah, that whole He Who Shall Not Be Named trade. The one that you can sing to the tune of B-b-b-Bennie and the Jets. While it is all pretty stressful, I’m not complaining. Our savings account was quite happy after all the overtime I put in last pay period. My sanity is suffering sometimes, though.

Last night Robert & I took the CJ-7 down to the beach and took a sunset walk. I needed a break from work, and Robert did, too (he’s working 50+ hours, and taking classes, as per usual). And I was still ended up texting a coworker about issues with a Final Four product most of the time. I’m sure it was quite a sight, me with my jeans rolled up, Robert carrying my flip flops, and me texting away on my iPhone. I felt very corporate. Simultaneously proud of how far I’ve come in nearly three years with the company, and also like I need a vacation. On the way home we split an iced caramel macchiato, and talked about all the things we want to do with the CJ and the house. Robert tried to keep me grounded, and I was (of course) already dreaming of kicking back in that imaginary chaise lounge, drinking iced coffee and catching up on my stack of magazines. (I’m sure the warm temps, and the fact that I’ve got RickoLus’ Backyard Baby on repeat today, don’t help with that daydream.)

Robert put in for a week of vacation in April, but I feel like I can’t ask for any time off while I’m waiting to hear about a position I applied for in another department. I feel like it would be completely unprofessional of me to ask my current manager to approve time off without knowing the other department’s decision. On the other hand, a whole week off with my husband to work on the house, go to the beach, and explore our city and the surrounding areas sounds fantastic. We haven’t taken weekday time off together since early 2010, when we went to San Fran for 3 days for his cousin’s wedding. So tempting.

I’ll try to scrape together a bathroom update in the next few days. We haven’t made much more progress, but I do have some more ‘splainin’ to do on the layout/details.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

It’s ok to be jealous.

Honestly, there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress to show until now. (Spoiler: I don’t actually show you any progress shots in this post. Easy there, with your scrolling finger.) We were at the stage where we had bought most of the supplies, and were just trying to make time to do the work. That happens to other people, right? As much as we love our house and blog, our day jobs (and Robert’s classes) definitely come first as far as time and energy. Even so, we’ve been working on things slowly in the background, trying to get things to a place where I felt like we had something to talk about.

I mean, we (ok, Robert) cleaned the old drywall & insulation out, so it was at least looking a bit less torn up. Then things sat for a while (several months), until recently when my dad came over to help Robert cut the old sub-floor (which also ran under the guest bathroom and the walk-in closet beside the bathroom) flush so we could attach the new one.

I still didn’t think we had enough to blog about, but I realized in talking to Jami that I might want to at least explain what we have decided as far as our new layout.

The guest bathroom is about 6′ by 8′ (or 72″ by 96″, for some reason I keep thinking about things in the room in inches). Before we demoed everything, the sink and toilet were on your left as you walk through the doorway, a linen closet was on your right, and the tub was directly ahead. Everything felt pretty cramped, we hated the bisque/beige & coral color of the tile, the cold water handle for the tub spout didn’t work, and the tile was pretty much crumbling and falling off the walls/tub deck when we bought the house.

So we really weren’t all that sad when we went to fix a burst PEX pipe and discovered mold. We just figured it was time to break out the respirators and sledge hammer (or in actuality, the pry bar). We ripped things down to studs, and when Robert fell through the sub-floor (which was only 8″ about the concrete slab of the old carport) we ripped that out, too. We’re going to be redoing the ceiling as well, but it’s still intact for now.

I tried to sketch this out roughly to scale, but the toilet-to-sink ratio is definitely wrong. I think you still get the point though, right?

Anyway, we were already thinking about changing the layout, and when we scored a great deal on a wider sink it sealed the deal. Again, the below is not quite to scale. Our previous tub was the same length as our new tub, but the new one is rectangular, so the it will be shifted slightly to minimize the tub surround, making the floor space slightly larger and also allowing for a small “step” behind the tub to hold shampoo, towels, or whatever. Sort of like this amazing after seen on HGTV’s website, although we’re considering using a granite or marble remnant instead of tile. With the wider sink and removed cabinet, we’re also moving the toilet over to the other side of the doorway, and converting to a pocket door.

And in list form, since I tend to ramble:

1. Our new, rectangular tub will be shifted slightly to create a step/shelf behind the tub.

2. Our new, wider sink will be centered on the wall that used to contain both the sink and the toilet.

3. The toilet will be moved to the other side of the bathroom, taking up part of the space that used to house a cabinet.

4. We’re installing a pocket door.

Hopefully it looks a little something like this when we get it all done:

Or like this.

Robert and I did some plumbing and sub-floor work on Sunday, and we’re planning to run the new drain pipe and supply line for the toilet tonight, so I’ll have more to tell you about soon. I also owe you an update on the budget. (Spoiler: we’ve spent about $1300 so far, and hope to come in between $1600 and $2000 for the whole thing. That includes: ripping everything down to the studs, replacing the ceiling & the sub-floor, new toilet, sink & tub, and installing radiant heat.)

 Sidenote: I also realized, in looking back at the pictures that Robert and I have taken in the almost-year since demoing the bathroom: none of them are taken from the same angle. So there’s that to look forward to- before & during photos from wildly varying angles. Oops.

Sidenote #2: Robert laughed at me when I said “My earring must have come off when I pulled off my respirator! It’s probably forever encased under the sub-floor.” Fortunately the Etsy seller is making another set!

I’d like to give a big thanks to West Elm for the feature, and an equally big welcome to any new readers!

I should add that the post about our entryway table can be see here, and the mirror we used is from Lowe’s.

I’ll be back later with an update about on our guest bath renovation, including how we’re changing the layout a bit.

Happy Friday!

———

Recently I’ve been working on breaking Robert of his love of ceiling fans. Mostly because I am a mean wife who is always cold and the man has a penchant for running ceiling fans in winter (and not in the running-in-reverse-to-force-heated-air-downward sort of way). But also because ceiling fans are ugly.

In the master bedroom we replaced the fan with a light from ReStore. It was a pretty cheap fix at about $35. The brassy light itself was about $5, the lighting kit used to rewire it was also $5 at ReStore, the clear globe ($14) came from Home Depot, the Edison bulb was $8 at Lowe’s,  and the Antique Gold Rub ‘n Buff I used was about $3.

You might remember that we also got rid of the low-hanging ceiling fan in the living room a while back. (And our tall friends rejoiced at the idea of not being decapitated just walking through the room.) We bought a table fan for the sofa table in the living room, and plan to add one in the master before summer.

This photo also shows three of the next projects we’d like to tackle in the master: the nightstands, the ceiling paint job, and the AC vents. When will we actually get to those? Who knows.

In the art room we swapped the fan out for the light that used to be over my parents’ kitchen sink. The fact that we used an Edison bulb here, too, means the rest of the room will need a bit of work as far as task lighting. Yay snowballing.

In other art room news, I picked this metal basket up on eBay with plans to use it on the shelf over the flat files. It’s pretty heavy with the books, and the shelves may already be bowing (or my eyes are playing tricks on me), so I’m thinking it will live on top of the flat files instead. But again, since things like to snowball around here, the top of the flat files themselves is definitely bowing, so we also need to make a wooden topper for those.

What have y’all been up to lately? Any lighting projects, or has anyone else been experiencing the snowball effect that tends to happen with DIY projects?